Congratulations, University of Wyoming! You now have an official Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) chapter, thanks to campus activist Ocean Dylan Andrew — and a little help from the Advocates’ OPH (Operation Politically Homeless).

Ocean had wanted to start a campus YAL chapter for a long time. When a change in university policy allowed him to table for recruitment, he jumped into action.

“I decided the Operation Politically Homeless kit from The Advocates for Self-Government would be best for recruiting,” Ocean wrote at YAL’s home page.

(Ocean got his OPH kit FREE from the Advocates — as more than 1,000 student organizations have done. Learn more about this here.)

Things were a bit slow at the booth at first. But then… OPH began working its magic.

“After one person decided to take [the Quiz], I soon was lacking enough pens for everyone to take it at once!”

The results: “We now have enough people to become official as soon as we find a faculty advisor!”

Congratulations, Ocean.

OPH is a fantastic way to turn an ordinary, dull outreach table into a crowd-drawing fun event. From the very first time the Advocates introduced OPH, some 25 years ago, users have told us over and over again that OPH brings their outreach booth and tabling efforts alive.

OPH makes it easy and fun to discover libertarian-leaning individuals and sign up new members, supporters and activists. OPH utilizes the crowd-drawing and mind-opening power of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz and eye-catching graphics. OPH makes your booth the most active, the most talked about, the most fascinating, at any event. And it’s fun and easy to do — a great outreach event for newcomers and veteran activists alike.

As I mentioned, in the past few years the Advocates has given — completely free of charge — over 1,000 OPH booth kits to libertarian campus organizations across America. These kits have reached tens of thousands of students with the ideas of liberty, and they will continue to do so for years to come.

Student groups: Learn more about OPH — and how you can get your FREE OPH kit — if you haven’t already — here.

Non-student libertarian groups:Learn how to get an inexpensive, crowd-drawing OPH kit for your organization.

Spring is here! It’s the perfect time for libertarian groups — student and non-student alike — to use OPH to discover new libertarian-leaning folks and invite them to join our movement for liberty that is changing the world.

Two congressmen have introduced bold bipartisan legislation that will fully repeal the police-state 2001 U.S. PATRIOT Act and substantially roll back the U.S. surveillance state that has metastasized in recent years.

The Surveillance State Repeal Act (H.R. 1466) was introduced on March 24 by Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), and it offers a great opportunity for Americans to restore lost liberty and privacy in one swoop.

“The warrantless collection of millions of personal communications from innocent Americans is a direct violation of our constitutional right to privacy,” said Rep. Pocan. “Revelations about the NSA’s programs reveal the extraordinary extent to which the program has invaded Americans’ privacy.

“I reject the notion that we must sacrifice liberty for security — we can live in a secure nation which also upholds a strong commitment to civil liberties. This legislation ends the NSA’s dragnet surveillance practices, while putting provisions in place to protect the privacy of American citizens through real and lasting change.”

“The Patriot Act contains many provisions that violate the Fourth Amendment and have led to a dramatic expansion of our domestic surveillance state,” said Rep. Massie. “Our Founding Fathers fought and died to stop the kind of warrantless spying and searches that the Patriot Act and the FISA Amendments Act authorize. It is long past time to repeal the Patriot Act and reassert the constitutional rights of all Americans.”

Libertarians and other defenders of civil liberties have cheered the bill.

Protect whistleblowers: Make retaliation against federal national security whistleblowers illegal and provide for the termination of individuals who engage in such retaliation.

Ensure that any FISA collection against a U.S. Person takes place only pursuant to a valid warrant based on probable cause (which was the original FISA standard from 1978 to 2001).

Retain the ability for government surveillance capabilities to be targeted against a specific natural person, regardless of the type of communications method(s) or device(s) being used by the subject of the surveillance.

Retain provisions in current law dealing with the acquisition of intelligence information involving weapons of mass destruction from entities not composed primarily of U.S. Persons.

Prohibit the government from mandating that electronic device or software manufacturers build in so-called “back doors” to allow the government to bypass encryption or other privacy technology built into said hardware and/or software.

Increase the terms of judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) from seven to ten years and allows their reappointment.

Mandate that the FISC utilize technologically competent Special Masters (technical and legal experts) to help determine the veracity of government claims about privacy, minimization and collection capabilities employed by the U.S. government in FISA applications.

Mandate that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) regularly monitor such domestic surveillance programs for compliance with the law, including responding to Member requests for investigations and whistleblower complaints of wrongdoing.

Explicitly ban the use of Executive Order 12333 as a way of collecting bulk data, which pertains to the collection and storage of communications by U.S. Persons.

Make no mistake: The bill faces an uphill battle in Congress. FreedomWorks chair Matt Kibbe called upon its 6.9 million members to fight for the bill, and created a web page where supporters of the bill can easily email this message to their representatives.

Libertarian Party chair Nicholas Sarwark called on all Americans who love liberty to create a grassroots campaign to support the Surveillance State Repeal Act, to contact their congressmen and women and urge them to support H.R. 1466, and to spread this message through social media and whatever other means possible.

In fact, Sarwick’s only complaint was that the bill, sweeping though it is, doesn’t go far enough.

“The Libertarian Party would like to see all aspects of government mass surveillance ended, including complete elimination of the secret FISA court whose work issuing warrants for terrorist and criminal suspects can be easily assumed by existing federal courts,” said Sarwark. “But this bill is a good first step.”

Chris Rufer is founder of The Morning Star Company, which employs approximately 2,500 people in food processing and agribusiness. He’s also an Advocates Board member.

Last week Chris had an excellent opinion piece published in the New York Times, explaining why the federally run Export-Import Bank is a rip-off and boondoggle that should be shut down.

The article is entitled “End This Corporate Welfare.” There’s a brief excerpt from it in this issue’s They Said It column, and you can read the full article here.

Chris does a great job of making this seemingly obscure and esoteric issue clear, interesting and important to the average reader.

One phrase in particular jumped out at me. Describing how corporate welfare works, Chris writes: “It’s private gain at the expense of public pain.”

That’s a great phrase! I love the populist feel of it, and how it makes the injustice of such things as the Export-Import Bank instantly clear. “Private gain at the expense of public pain” can be used to describe all kinds of corporate welfare and crony capitalism boondoggles: professional sports subsidies, licensing laws that protect politically connected businesses from competition, taxes on imported goods… and many more.

I also like another phrase Chris used. He notes that the Import-Export Bank gives huge private businesses taxpayer-backed loans, guarantees and insurance.

The results: “When a company profits from the bank’s support, it pockets the money. If it defaults, taxpayers’ pockets get picked.”

That, too, is a clever and catchy way to describe the essential unfairness of corporate welfare, how it protects politically connected companies from the risks and consequences of their actions — at the expense of the rest of us.

Consider adding these two phrases to your liberty communication vocabulary.

“Every so often, President Obama is confronted with young Americans who favor legalizing marijuana,” notes Conor Friedersdorf of the Atlantic magazine, in an enlightening short article entitled “Obama’s Critique of Young People Who Want Legal Marijuana.”

“He typically treats their enthusiasm for the issue as a joke, despite the fact that he almost certainly wouldn’t be a successful politician today if he’d been arrested and convicted for smoking marijuana … in his youth.”

Friedersdorf points to the latest example of our ex-pot-smoking Drug-Warrior-in-Chief doing this: an interview Obama did in mid-March with VICE News founder Shane Smith. When Smith told Obama that marijuana re-legalization was the number one issue online readers said they wanted addressed, Obama’s reply was again condescending:

“It shouldn’t be young people’s biggest priority,” the President said. “Let’s put it in perspective. Young people, I understand this is important to you. But you should be thinking about climate change, the economy, jobs, war and peace. Maybe way at the bottom you should be thinking about marijuana.”

Wrong, says Friedersdorf. He reverses Obama’s argument:

“The young people to whom Obama addressed himself would be fully justified in reversing the criticism: ‘Given challenges like climate change, an uncertain economy, joblessness, and war, how can you justify spending perhaps $160 billion over the course of your tenure on marijuana prohibition? Isn’t it the federal government, not us young people, that has irrationally prioritized marijuana policy? We’re fighting for a more rational allotment of resources, where government funds are directed away from weed and toward challenges you listed as more pressing.’”

Further, Friedersdorf points out, young people may not have settled opinions, agreement, and effective political strategies for action on the problems Obama lists. But on the re-legalization issue, they are already in agreement and having major success, winning re-legalization battles in several states and winning public opinion. Plus the solution is straightforward and the benefits tremendous. And, he notes, “If they mobilize, they have a realistic chance of ending prohibition in the next decade [and] that would meaningfully enrich the lives of many millions of people here and abroad.”

So why shouldn’t young people press forward on this issue? Is it sensible to wait for the climate debate to be settled and solved, war to be halted and world peace achieved, and jobs and prosperity to be available to all — before dealing with the far simpler-to-solve issue of marijuana re-legalization?

Conor Friedersdorf’s excellent short article has much more of interest on this, and includes a link to the full VICE News interview with President Obama.

OUR BIGGEST PROBLEM:“Obama suggests voting should be made mandatory. Yeah, the problem with this country is that not enough uninformed people are voting.” — Facebook post from libertarian commentator Julie Borowski, March 19, 2015.

GOV’T PRIORITIES: “There are 400,000 untested rape kits across the U.S. The excuses are ‘they’re expensive’ and ‘there’s no time.’ Governments sure do seem to have the time and money to arrest, prosecute, and jail non-violent drug offenders and [those who commit] other victimless crimes…” — Facebook post from Libertarian Girl (aka Marianne Copenhaver), March 16, 2015.

DISMANTLE THE TSA, SAYS GOP CHAIRMAN: “I believe we made a big mistake in 2002 or 2003 when we set up the TSA. The Transportation committee… had experts from the British, the Germans, the Israelis all come testify before the committee and overwhelmingly they told us: Don’t set up a federal [agency].” — House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) in a March 18 briefing. Shuster suggested that airport security — currently provided by the hated TSA (Transportation Security Administration), now metastasized to over 50,000 employees — be turned over to the private sector, with federal oversight. Quoted in The Hill, “GOP chairman: TSA was a ‘big mistake’,” March 18, 2015.
ONE BEGINS TO SUSPECT…“According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, accounts for nearly two-fifths of global military spending. It allocates more money to the military than the next eight biggest spenders combined. The United States is a large country with peaceful neighbors. Yet it spends more than $2,000 per capita on defense — as much as Israel, a tiny country beset by enemies, and more than twice as much as European countries such as the U.K., France and Germany. One begins to suspect that our so-called defense budget is spent on a lot of things that have little or nothing to do with defense.” — syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum, “The Squeal of the War Hogs: Why Do Lindsey Graham and John McCain Think Half a Trillion Dollars Is Not Enough To Defend the Country?”, March 18, 2015.

STOP THE EXPORT-IMPORT BANK RIP-OFF: “[T]he federally run Export-Import Bank… is a case study in corporate welfare. Founded during the New Deal, its mission is to ‘support jobs in the United States by facilitating the export of U.S. goods and services.’ In practice, it offers taxpayer-backed loans, guarantees and insurance to private companies. When a company profits from the bank’s support, it pockets the money. If it defaults, taxpayers’ pockets get picked. … In 2013, roughly 93 percent of the bank’s loan guarantees by value benefited only five companies — including Caterpillar, General Electric and other multinational corporations with hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in annual profits… In 2012, 83 percent benefited a single company: Boeing. … The Export-Import Bank’s charter expires at the end of June and businesses and lobbyists are lining up to persuade Congress to reauthorize it.” — Chris Rufer, founder of The Morning Star Company and Advocates Board member, “End This Corporate Welfare,” New York Times, March 23, 2015.

What’s the WORST piece of advice that many motivational gurus and personal coaches give to under-performing business and sales people?

“If you’re not getting the results you want, double your rate of failure. Or triple the number of prospects you call on,” many urge. “Massive action is the royal road to success,” say success gurus from Tony Robbins on down.

Does doubling your rate of failure improve your skill? No.

Does tripling your rate of failure inspire and motivate you? No.

Does massive wrong action deliver better results? No.

Massive unskilled action will wear you out. Will demoralize you. Will drive you out of sales or public speaking or persuasion.

If you’re not getting the sales or speaking or persuasion results you want, watch YouTube videos by those performers who ARE getting it done.

Or read how-to books by those who regularly get 2 or 3 or 10 times the results you do:

In 2008, in order to deal with the problem of obesity, the Los Angeles city council banned the opening or expansion of “stand-alone fast-food restaurants” in low-income areas of the city, where about 700,000 people lived.

Now the results of that experiment in nanny-state tyranny are in. And according to a study by the RAND Corporation, financed by the National Institutes of Health, and published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, it has been… a total failure. Overweight and obesity rates actually increased in the area covered by the fast-food ban from 2007 to 2012 — and faster than the rest of the city or county.

Further, the consumption of fast food increased at the same rate as outside the area of the ban. And as an unintended consequence, desperately needed restaurant jobs in that area never came into being, thanks to the ban.

Libertarians aren’t surprised. We’ve watched, time after time, government attempts to control the peaceful lifestyle choices of adults crash, burn, and backfire.

Remember in 2002, when all illegal drug use in America ended, thanks to the efforts of 32 Republican congressmen? Oh wait… that didn’t happen. But that’s what House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s “Speaker’s Task Force for a Drug-Free America” boldly promised on March 24, 1998: a “drug-free America by 2002.” Yes, they said that with a straight face. What did happen, of course, was a continuation and escalation of military-style Drug War tactics that have gutted civil liberties, encouraged drug abuse, led to the creation of ever-worse drugs, made vicious gangsters rich, spread AIDS and other diseases, and produced many other negative consequences. Rumor has it that illegal drugs can still be found in America as of 2015.

The Bush administration’s 2001 No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program said that by 2014 every child in America was supposed to achieve grade level or higher in reading and math. Libertarian scholar Charles Murray memorably described the law: “The United States Congress, acting with large bipartisan majorities, at the urging of the President, enacted as the law of the land that all children are to be above average.” To make this happen, the federal government poured tens of billions of dollars into this (arguably unconstitutional) scheme. Of course, NCLB has been a failure, and government education remains a disaster.

Alcohol Prohibition began on January 16, 1920. America’s most famous evangelist, Dr. Billy Sunday, boldly proclaimed: “The reign of tears is over. The slums will soon be only a memory. We will turn our prisons into factories and our jails into storehouses and corncribs. Men will walk upright now, women will smile and the children will laugh. Hell will be forever for rent.” Well, it didn’t quite work out that way.

We could go on and on. No one ever summed this up quite as succinctly as the great libertarian writer and Libertarian Party presidential candidate Harry Browne: “Libertarians understand a very simple fact of life: Government doesn’t work. It can’t deliver the mail on time, it doesn’t keep our cities safe, it doesn’t educate our children properly.”

Libertarians also know what does work: liberty. Let people be free to live in any peaceful way they choose, to exchange goods and services as they see fit, and the results will be extraordinary: a flourishing of peace, harmony, creativity, and abundance. Over and over again, history shows this. Indeed, it is the story of the progress of the human race.

That’s why I call libertarianism “the great Cause that makes all other great causes possible.” One day people will look back at the vast graveyard of failed government programs… and wonder how anyone could have ever believed that bullying and coercion could possibly work better than liberty.

“Every dystopian sci-fi film we’ve ever seen is suddenly converging into this present moment in a dangerous trifecta between science, technology and a government that wants to be all-seeing, all-knowing and all-powerful.

“Of course, none of these technologies are foolproof. Nor are they immune from tampering, hacking or user bias. Nevertheless, they have become a convenient tool in the hands of government agents to render null and void the Constitution’s requirements of privacy and its prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures.

“Consequently, no longer are we ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in the face of DNA evidence that places us at the scene of a crime, behavior sensing technology that interprets our body temperature and facial tics as suspicious, and government surveillance devices that cross-check our biometrics, license plates and DNA against a growing database of unsolved crimes and potential criminals. …

“All 50 states now maintain their own DNA databases, although the protocols for collection differ from state to state. That DNA is also being collected in the FBI’s massive national DNA database, code-named CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), which was established as a way to identify and track convicted felons and has since become a de facto way to identify and track the American people from birth to death.

“Indeed, hospitals have gotten in on the game by taking and storing newborn babies’ DNA, often without their parents’ knowledge or consent. …

“What this means for those being born today is inclusion in a government database that contains intimate information about who they are, their ancestry, and what awaits them in the future, including their inclinations to be followers, leaders or troublemakers.

“If you haven’t yet connected the dots, let me point the way: Having already used surveillance technology to render the entire American populace potential suspects, DNA technology in the hands of government will complete our transition to a suspect society in which we are all merely waiting to be matched up with a crime.

“No longer can we consider ourselves innocent until proven guilty. … We are all suspects in a DNA lineup until circumstances and science say otherwise.”

A new Gallup poll shows America’s two largest and oldest political parties both falling to a new low in favor among the public.

Only 37% of Americans now view the Republican Party favorably; only 39% view the Democratic Party favorably. This is a significant drop for the GOP — fully five points — from the midterm elections this past fall in which the Republicans won control of both the U.S. House and Senate. And it’s a near-record low for the Democrats — their lowest score was 36%, after the 2014 midterm elections.

This is the lowest favorability rating for both parties together since Gallup began tracking this way (i.e., asking about both parties in one poll) in 1992.

It is also the first time that neither party has achieved at least 40% favorability in this comparison poll. And, according to Gallup, it marks a clear downward trend.

Says Gallup: “The descent to sub-40% ratings for both parties marks a new low in an already inauspicious trend. … Except for a brief spike to 51% for the Democrats after Obama was re-elected in 2012, both parties’ ratings have registered below 50% since 2010.

“Bottom line: For some time, numerous Gallup trends have been showing Americans largely displeased with government’s performance and leadership. Through it all, at least one political party was reviewed well, but now — perhaps because of the constant brinksmanship going on between Obama and the Republican Congress, but maybe for other reasons — both parties are floundering.”

Adds Richard Winger, America’s leading expert on ballot access laws: “If the United States had nondiscriminatory election laws and practices relating to ballot access, debates, and campaign finance, it is obvious that new parties would arise and gain substantial support, just as they have in Great Britain and Canada.”

FORMER DEA AGENT SAYS DRUG WAR IS AIMED AT POOR BLACKS: “What I began to see is that the Drug War is totally about race. If we were locking up everybody, white and black, for doing the same drugs, they would have done the same thing they did with Prohibition. They would have outlawed it. They would have said, ‘Let’s stop this craziness. You’re not putting my son in jail. My daughter isn’t going to jail.’” — Matthew Fogg, retired Chief Deputy U.S. Marshall and former DEA special agent, in an interview with Brave New Films. Fogg says he and other agents were ordered by superiors not to enforce drug laws in prosperous white neighborhoods.

THE FOURTH AMENDMENT VS. THE NSA: “The Fourth Amendment… is the law of the land. And the NSA is violating its letter and spirit, no matter how many times its defenders use dubious legal reasoning to argue otherwise. The right of the people to be secure in their ‘persons, houses, papers, and effects’ is meaningless if the NSA can seize and later search details about everyone’s communications. The requirements for probable cause and particularity cannot be squared with surveillance that implicates practically everyone. The Fourth Amendment’s historic attempt to end general warrants cannot be viewed as a success so long as the government is prying into the private affairs of tens of millions of people who are not even suspected of any wrongdoing.” — journalist Conor Friedersdorf, “The Surveillance State’s Greatest Enemy? The U.S. Constitution,” The Atlantic, March 3, 2015.

ACTUALLY, IT’S A POLITICAL PROBLEM, TOO: “It’s not a political problem; it’s a math problem. … Everyone is looking at the model right now, asking how do we do math? Every [restaurant] operator I’m talking to is in panic mode, trying to figure out what the new world will look like.” — Anthony Anton, president and CEO of the Washington Restaurant Association, on the new difficulties restaurant owners face because of Seattle’s new $15 per hour minimum wage (i.e., tax on employers who hire workers). The law is expected to send labor costs skyrocketing, and is being blamed for a rash of restaurant closings. Quoted in “Why Are So Many Seattle Restaurants Closing Lately?” in Seattle magazine, March 4, 2015.

ZERO WAGES FOR SEATTLE’S NEW JOBLESS: “As the implementation date for Seattle’s strict $15 per hour minimum wage law approaches, the city is experiencing a rising trend in restaurant closures. The tough new law goes into effect April 1st. The closings have occurred across the city, from Grub in the upscale Queen Anne Hill neighborhood, to Little Uncle in gritty Pioneer Square, to the Boat Street Cafe on Western Avenue near the waterfront. The shut-downs have idled dozens of low-wage workers, the very people advocates say the wage law is supposed to help. Instead of delivering the promised ‘living wage’ of $15 an hour, economic realities created by the new law have dropped the hourly wage for these workers to zero.” — Paul Guppy, Washington Policy Center blog, “Seattle’s $15 wage law a factor in restaurant closings”
BEST RE-LEGALIZATION BILL EVER:“I am proposing that this plant [marijuana] be regulated like tomatoes, jalapenos or coffee. Current marijuana policies are not based on science or sound evidence, but rather misinformation and fear. All that God created is good, including marijuana. God did not make a mistake when he made marijuana that the government needs to fix. Let’s allow the plant to be utilized for good — helping people with seizures, treating warriors with PTSD, producing fiber and other products — or simply for beauty and enjoyment. Government prohibition should be for violent actions that harm your neighbor — not of the possession, cultivation, and responsible use of plants.” — Texas Republican state representative David Simpson, who describes himself as a “constitutional conservative,” explaining his marijuana re-legalization bill, KETK NBC TV, Tyler, Texas.

QUESTION: What is the difference between Ayn Rand’s Objectivism and libertarianism?

MY SHORT ANSWER: In my opinion, the differences are more cultural than real, in political matters. Both Objectivism and libertarianism are based on the non-aggression principle of honoring our neighbors’ choice (not initiating physical force, fraud or theft) and making things right with our victims if we don’t.

Objectivism is a comprehensive philosophy of life that includes not just political beliefs but strong and unified beliefs on virtually every aspect of human existence, including religion, art, romance, and so on. Libertarianism, in contrast, is a strictly political philosophy.

Rand believed that government’s proper role was protection of rights and that government should have a monopoly on defensive force to fulfill this role. Many libertarians agree with her. Others believe that governments are a poor protector of rights and that competition in this realm is right and proper.

* * *

LEARN MORE: Suggestions by Liberator Online editor James W. Harris for additional reading on this topic:

Ironically, although Ayn Rand publicly disavowed libertarianism, she is unquestionably one of the most influential figures in the modern libertarian movement and is commonly identified today as a libertarian. And her political views are libertarian, by any common definition of the term.

Here are two short pieces that explore this seeming contradiction. Please note, this is a subject about which many people disagree.

Excerpt: “If we exclude anarchism [that is, the kind of non-government libertarianism advocated by Murray N. Rothbard, David F. Friedman, and others, sometimes known as 'anarcho-capitalism' or 'market anarchism'], we can say that libertarianism is the Objectivist position in politics. But Objectivism includes more than politics. It is a systematic philosophy that also includes a specific view of reality, human nature, and the nature of knowledge. It includes a specific code of morality based on the requirements of life in this world. The Objectivist commitment to individual rights and a ban on the initiation of force is grounded in its view of nature, knowledge, and values. Its political conclusions thus stand on a firm and quite specific foundation …Philosophically, some libertarians are Objectivists, or would at least agree with the core elements in the Objectivist case for liberty, such as the individual’s need to act by means of reason in pursuing his life and happiness as ultimate values.”

* “Objectivism and Libertarianism“ by Nathaniel Branden. In this very short 1999 article Branden, at one time one of Rand’s closest associates, tells how Rand considered, and rejected, the label libertarian — and what that word now means in today’s political world.

Excerpt: “[T]oday libertarianism is part of our language and is commonly understood to mean the advocacy of minimal government. Ayn Rand is commonly referred to as ‘a libertarian philosopher.’ Folks, we are all libertarians now. Might as well get used to it.”

Spring is almost here! People will be out and about to enjoy the great weather. Springtime events will be everywhere: art fairs, political rallies, music festivals, gun shows, campus gatherings of different kinds, concerts, and many more…

This makes spring a fantastic time to take the ideas of liberty to your community or campus, discover new supporters and members for your libertarian organization — and HAVE FUN doing it.

How? With Operation Politically Homeless (OPH) — the Advocates’ acclaimed “event in a kit” that can help you discover dozens or even hundreds of libertarian-leaning people in your community.

Quite simply, OPH works like magic. Wherever people are gathered, OPH will attract them. OPH incorporates the mind-opening power of the World’s Smallest Political Quiz. OPH lets you quickly identify people who are libertarian or libertarian-leaning — and get their names and contact information.

OPH is one of the great success stories of the libertarian movement. Hundreds of thousands of people have encountered the ideas of liberty through OPH. And millions more people are out there, just waiting for someone — maybe you? — to introduce them to libertarianism and get them active for liberty.

And one of the most amazing things about OPH is that it’s… FUN!

Libertarian outreach — fun? You bet! Over and over again, OPH users tell us that:

“I’ve been doing OPH for several years. I have administered thousands of Quizzes, seen people with all manner of political views, been asked questions ranging from the insightful to the provocative to the absurd, and generally had fun. That’s right, I had fun.”

“I ended up staying four hours simply because it was so much fun!”

“It is fun. Usually we’ll have a couple of dozen people standing around the booth, a big crowd. Most of the time people just jump right into it.”

“The reaction to OPH was thrilling. People thronged our table… We got some awesome new recruits.”

“We used the OPH kit at the school’s club fair last week and recruited 55 new members.”

“OPH is a breakthrough tool. Anyone can do it — it’s so easy. It’s not only a great tool for attracting people, it’s also a great tool for keeping people involved.”

Think about the numbers, and consider the possibilities. A typical OPH event can easily find and sign up twenty or more — often many more — libertarian-friendly people.

How much stronger would the liberty movement be if hundreds of OPHs were conducted across America this spring — discovering thousands of eager new libertarian activists, supporters, donors and voters?

Imagine a thousand OPHs in operation this spring, averaging twenty new libertarian sign-ups.

How much would the liberty movement benefit from an infusion of 20,000 eager new libertarian activists?

How much would your libertarian group benefit from 10, 20, 40 or 50 new supporters, members and activists?

Somewhere near you, this week, there will be an event — a political rally, a county fair, a concert, a neighborhood party — that is PERFECT for OPH. Potential libertarians will be there, waiting to be discovered. Will OPH be there? It’s up to you.

Again, to learn more about OPH and see photos of OPH in action, visit here.

DRUG PROSECUTORS RUIN LIVES:“Every time I opened a file [as a drug case prosecutor], I ruined a life. You can get over an addiction, but not a conviction. … The War on Drugs has failed in every respect and exacerbated every problem it was called on to fix.” — Ethan Simon, Bernalillo County, New Mexico assistant district attorney 2008-2011, now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), speaking at the University of New Mexico School of Law, February 26, 2015.

AUDIT THE FED: “Perhaps the real reason the Federal Reserve fears a full audit can be revealed by examining the one-time audit of the Federal Reserve’s response to the financial crisis authorized by the Dodd-Frank law. This audit found that between 2007 and 2010 the Federal Reserve committed over $16 trillion — more than four times the annual budget of the United States — to foreign central banks and politically influential private companies. Can anyone doubt a full audit would show similar instances of the Fed acting to benefit the political and economic elites?” — Ron Paul, “Don’t Be Fooled by the Federal Reserve’s Anti-Audit Propaganda,” March 8, 2015.

NET NEUTRALITY: A “SOLUTION” LOOKING FOR A PROBLEM: “At the most fundamental level, net neutrality is a solution looking for a problem. There currently aren’t any companies paying ISPs for favoritism, and no clear indication that any will. Plus, even if they did, Internet speeds are increasing at an exponential rate, making the argument irrelevant. To illustrate this point, the University of Surrey in the UK is testing 5G Internet that will give mobile phones terabit speeds, faster than even the best fiber optic Internet connections today. At that speed, full-length movies in high quality would download in a split second. Spinning wheels in front of videos will be a thing of the past, no matter how much any company pays another. Yet, the FCC will still be able to regulate the Internet as it pleases, even if there is no longer a need for the regulation (if a need for the regulation ever existed in the first place).” — Jack Enright, “Net Neutrality: A solution looking for a problem,” Students For Liberty blog, March 4, 2015.

NOBODY LIKES CONGRESS: “Today during his speech in Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly referred to Congress as ‘my friends.’ It was a move that had many in Congress Googling the word ‘friend.’” — Seth Meyers, March 3, 2015.

DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, AS LONG AS… “A modern liberal is someone who doesn’t care what you do, as long as it’s compulsory.” — conservative author and icon M. Stanton Evans [as quoted by George Will], who died March 3, 2015.

The Libertarian Party has denounced the latest income tax reform proposal by “fiscal conservative” Senators Marco Rubio (R- FL) and Mike Lee (R-UT) as far too timid with little or no benefit to most taxpayers. Further, charges the Libertarian Party, the plan “leaves the federal tax burden dangerously high.”

“This is what leaders within the GOP — which now holds majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate — have to offer?” asked Nicholas Sarwark, Chair of the Libertarian National Committee. “The Republican plan would do nothing to reduce federal deficits or federal spending. It keeps the federal tax burden at over $3 trillion and climbing, up from the dangerously high level of $2.1 trillion when Obama took office.”

The irony of “fiscal conservatives” in control of both branches of Congress calling for taxes higher than when Obama came in, and adding trillions of dollars to the national debt, was not lost on the Libertarians.

There’s a far better way, the Libertarian Party said.

“How about doing what many Libertarian candidates propose instead: ending the federal income tax altogether, balancing the budget, and cutting trillions of dollars in wasteful federal spending,” suggested Sarwark.

The Libertarian Party noted the surprising fact that ending the federal income tax entirely — and replacing it with nothing — while also balancing the budget — only requires rolling back federal spending to the level of… 1998.

1998, of course, was near the end of the Clinton administration, routinely denounced by conservatives as epitomizing “Big Government.” Certainly no conservative leaders in 1998 worried that the federal government was too small or lacked funds to perform its constitutional duties. Even President Clinton himself acknowledged that government had become far too big, famously declaring that “the era of Big Government is over” (perhaps unaware that we would soon be in the era of Bigger and Even Bigger Government).

Yet simply returning to funding at the 1998 level, says the Libertarian Party, would not only allow the abolition of the hated income tax. It would allow “more than enough to provide a strong national defense — and dramatically more than enough to fulfill all constitutional functions of the federal government.”

“Ending the income tax, balancing the budget — eliminating wasteful, unneeded and destructive government programs, wars, and bureaucracies — and cutting total federal spending accordingly will put an average of $11,525 back into the budget of every American household,” said Sarwark. “It pours $1.4 trillion into the productive, private sector economy.

“That’s stimulus!” Sarwark said. “Vote Libertarian, end the income tax, and put money back into your budget.”

David Simpson, a Texas Republican state representative who describes himself as a “constitutional conservative,” has introduced what is surely the best and most libertarian marijuana re-legalization bill yet.

His bill — introduced this month — would simply eliminate all references to marijuana in Texas law, presumably making marijuana as legal as rose bushes or pine trees.

And he justifies it as part of an overall personal and political philosophy based on Christian values, individual liberty and limited government.

Simpson explains his thinking in a remarkable op-ed in The Texas Tribune, entitled “The Christian Case for Drug Law Reform.” Excerpts:

As a Christian, I recognize the innate goodness of everything God made and humanity’s charge to be stewards of the same.

In fact, it’s for this reason that I’m especially cautious when it comes to laws banning plants. I don’t believe that when God made marijuana he made a mistake that government needs to fix.

[...]

[O]ur current ‘War on Drugs’ policies, though well intended, [are] spurring a proliferation of ever-changing exotic designer drugs and a disregard for constitutional protections in the name of eliminating drugs at any cost. Just think of no-knock warrants, stop-and-frisk, civil asset forfeiture and billionaire drug lords …state and federal agents are empowered to enforce laws with little to no regard for constitutional protections of individual rights, the sanctity of one’s home or the right to travel freely.

The time has come for a thoughtful discussion of the prudence of the prohibition approach to drug abuse, the impact of prohibition enforcement on constitutionally protected liberties and the responsibilities that individuals must take for their own actions.

[...]

Should we be concerned for our friends and neighbors who abuse a substance or activity? Yes, we should help them through sincere and voluntary engagement, but not with force and violence.

Is there a place for prohibition? Yes, a prohibition of aggression (Romans 13). Our laws should prohibit and penalize violent acts. This is the jurisdiction of the magistrates under the new covenant — harm to one’s neighbor.

Civil government should value everything God made and leave people alone unless they meddle with their neighbor.

As Reason magazine notes, “This is not just a brief against marijuana prohibition, or even the War on Drugs in general. It is a brief against using force to stop peaceful, consensual activity. … We need more Republicans like David Simpson.”

Most of us think of the sales tax as spare change, or a nuisance, most of the time — a few pennies or dollars per purchase, and the occasional more painful amount on big-ticket purchases. Yet the total amount Americans pay over the course of a year in sales taxes can be a significant percentage of their income. In California, for example, state and local sales taxes can hit a whopping 10%. And sales taxes on the necessities of life — food, clothing, transportation, etc. — can hit the poor and struggling especially hard.

The way the sales tax is collected, in daily small amounts, muddies and hides the impact of this tax and who pays it. So does the innocuous name “sales tax.”

Perry suggests two alternate terms to make people think. He suggests it’s more accurate to call the sales tax “the consumer tax” or “the buyers’ tax” so that “the ultimate payer of the tax is recognized.”

I like both of these, and I’m especially fond of “buyers’ tax.”

And here’s one of my own: “customer tax.”

Try them out. You may find they open minds and lead to fruitful discussions.

CPAC — the Conservative Political Action Committee — is the nation’s largest annual gathering of conservative activists and office holders. In recent years it has featured a strong and growing contingent of young libertarian activists among the attendees. This year’s CPAC was February 26-28 in Washington, DC.

As in past years the Advocates’ World’s Smallest Political Quiz and Operation Politically Homeless (OPH) were prominent at CPAC, too. Videos from the Washington Post and Reason TV briefly captured OPH in action — highlighting the visual appeal and the effectiveness of this legendary outreach tool.

Last year the Daily Beast reported that a booth by Generation Opportunity and Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) featuring the Quiz and OPH was “the one consistently drawing the biggest crowds.”

This year Libertarians were once again all over CPAC. One of the highlights of each CPAC is the presidential straw poll at each CPAC, widely viewed as a barometer of activist sentiment within the party. Libertarian-friendly Sen. Rand Paul won this year’s presidential poll — his third victory in a row — with 25.7 percent of the 3,007 total votes cast.

According to The Polling Company, 42 percent of the voters were students and a plurality of voters were between the ages of 18 and 25 — another sign of the strong and fast-growing libertarian sentiment among young GOP activists. (See this article on the growing generational split within the GOP on issues like marijuana re-legalization and marriage choice.)
The Libertarian Party was there, as was 2012 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson. A video from a panel discussion in which Johnson mocked Reefer Madness-style marijuana propaganda quickly spread around the Web. Students For Liberty (SFL) and Young Americans for Liberty were among other libertarian and liberty-minded organizations there.

In fact, libertarianism is getting so popular at CPAC that even people who plainly are not libertarians are trying to claim they are. Perhaps the most surreal moment of the entire conference was the startling proclamation by former NSA head, former CIA head, and current surveillance state and torture apologist Michael Hayden, who stunned a debate audience by declaring “I’m an unrelenting libertarian…” which had many in the audience laughing out loud in disbelief, and one person shouting loudly, “No you’re not!”

OPH: Campus Groups Get it FREE

Speaking of OPH and young activists… In the past few years the Advocates has given — completely free of charge — over 1,000 OPH booth kits to libertarian campus organizations across America. These kits have reached tens of thousands of students with the ideas of liberty, and they will continue to do so for years to come.

OPH is a fantastic way to turn an ordinary, dull outreach table into a crowd-drawing fun event! From the very first time the Advocates introduced OPH, some 25 years ago, users have told us over and over again that OPH brings their outreach booth and tabling efforts alive.

OPH makes it easy and fun to discover libertarian-leaning individuals and sign up new members and supporters — new libertarian activists who will work in college and after graduation to bring liberty to all Americans. OPH consistently makes a booth the most active, the most talked about, the most fascinating, at any event.

A new Pew poll shows a solid majority of Americans — 52% — continues to support re-legalizing marijuana. The poll also shows a major split between older “Reefer Madness”-thinking Republicans and more libertarian-inclined GOP Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996).

Young Americans support re-legalization overwhelmingly, and they are driving this issue. Fully 69% of Millennials surveyed favor making the use of marijuana legal.

The split between young and old is particularly striking in the Republican Party. Fully 63% of GOP Millennials say the use of marijuana should be made legal. That level of support is higher than that found among Republican Generation Xers (47%) and Baby Boomers (38%), and much higher than among GOP members of the Silent Generation (17%). (Pew defines Generation X as those born between 1965-1980; Baby Boomers, 1946-1964; the Silent Generation, 1928-1945.)

As Pew notes: “the age gap is… strikingly similar trend to what we’ve seen within the party when it comes to same-sex marriage.”

Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters are far more favorable across the board. A whopping 77% of Democratic Millennials favoring re-legalization of marijuana use, as well as 66% of Boomers, 61% of Gen Xers and 44% of Democratic members of the Silent Generation.

Accompanying this debate is a remarkable shift in how Americans now view marijuana use as a crime. A large majority of Americans of all political persuasions —76% — think that people convicted of possessing small amounts of marijuana should not have to serve time in jail.

Adam Dick of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Freedom notes: “These young Republicans are definitely at odds with the majority of Republicans in the United States House of Representatives who continue to vote ‘no’ on rollbacks of the U.S. government’s war on marijuana.

“The trend reflected in the Pew poll results suggests that American politicians will, with each passing year, face electorates increasingly supportive of marijuana legalization — including in Republican primaries. A major shift in marijuana public opinions and policy is ongoing in America. Many politicians will be caught off guard by the major changes yet to come.

“Expect voters to boot out more drug warrior politicians because of those politicians’ increasingly discordant views regarding marijuana. Also watch for politicians to increasingly shift their positions so they publicly support rollbacks in the war on marijuana.”

Students For Liberty (SFL), in partnership with the Atlas Network, has published four outstanding libertarian books — great reading for student and non-student libertarians alike.

And you can download them for FREE as e-books or PDFs, or purchase paperback copies. (Note: if you’re not a student, ignore the “Expected year of college graduation” form box when downloading a PDF.)

Here’s what SFL offers:

The Economics of Freedom: Selected Works of Frédéric Bastiat features a truly delightful and enlightening collection of essays. Atlas scholar Tom Palmer notes that Bastiat is “the clearest, most sensible economist who ever wrote. Bastiat can be understood by a Nobel Prize winner, a taxi driver, a student, an entrepreneur… even a politician! Read this book and get set for a life-changing experience.”

The Morality of Capitalism edited by Tom G. Palmer: Outstanding short pieces by a fantastic line-up of philosophers, economists, Nobel Prize winners, and entrepreneurs, all making the case that not only are markets highly effective, a true free market system is a prerequisite for a just, prosperous, and cooperative society.

Why Liberty edited by Tom G. Palmer: A great collection of articles that focuses not just on political theory but also on liberty through the lens of culture, entrepreneurship, health, art, technology, philosophy, and the transformative power of freedom. The book features articles from experts in the fields of policy, academia, business, media, and student organizing. This collection makes it clear that liberty is a dynamic and liberating force with the power to change the world for the better.

Peace, Love, & Liberty edited by Tom G. Palmer: Shows that libertarianism is the philosophy of peace — and how libertarian ideas are making the world a safer place. Drawing on the disciplines of history, philosophy, poetry, literature, and psychology, Peace, Love, & Liberty shows that peace is possible — and shows how we can achieve it.